US Attorney apprehended the one they say is behind over a decade of fraud.

A man has been arrested for allegedly stealing identities to ring up at least $8 million in fraudulent cell phone service charges, according to a press release from the office of the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York on Wednesday. The US Attorney, Preet Bharara, asserts that the arrested man, Amadou Dia, executed the scheme for 12 years with a number of co-conspirators.

To achieve the service theft, Dia allegedly stole the identities of over 1,000 people, 450 of who were active-duty or retired US military personnel. Dia collected names, social security numbers, and dates of birth, and then used that information to activate cell service accounts with AT&T and T-Mobile.

Dia and his partners would then “create SIM cards and put them in mobile handsets,” and use the phones to call premium international telephone numbers sometimes costing $1 a minute to connect. When AT&T or T-Mobile went to bill for the calls, they couldn’t hold those with their names in the accounts responsible, as they were identity theft victims. Hence, the US carriers would have to pay out to the international carriers, who would then pay out to the holders of the telephone numbers, who were allegedly in on the scam with Dia.

Dia, who is 49 and lives in Manhattan, is being charged with one count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and conspiracy to commit identity theft, as well as one count of aggravated identity theft. The last charge carries a minimum two-year prison sentence, while the first two carry maximum sentences of 20 and 15 years, respectively.

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It's a pretty ingenious scheme. I'm impressed he managed to get away with it for so many years. I do wonder what made the service members more susceptible to the identity theft, however.

For some times of fraud active duty and deployed victims are more desirable targets because either their mail takes longer to get to them or a spouse/parent whose less likely to notice a bogus charge gives them more time to run the fraud on a single victim; as does the increased difficulty of spending hours on hold while working with anti-fraud departments.

It's entirely possible that it just came down to what the person he bought the IDs from gave him though.

1044 posts | registered Feb 2, 2010

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

It took 12 years for all of the entities involved to figure this out, yet only a month or so when some poor sucker downloads a copywritten song illegally. And there's some disparity in the resultant penalties also.

It's a pretty ingenious scheme. I'm impressed he managed to get away with it for so many years. I do wonder what made the service members more susceptible to the identity theft, however.

For some types of fraud active duty and deployed victims are more desirable targets because either their mail takes longer to get to them or a spouse/parent whose less likely to notice a bogus charge gives them more time to run the fraud on a single victim; as does the increased difficulty of spending hours on hold while working with anti-fraud departments.

It's entirely possible that it just came down to what the person he bought the IDs from gave him though.

Meanwhile, Wall Street bankers who live in Manhattan have stolen billions from investors and the public and gotten away with it. Amadou Dia's crime was apparently not stealing *enough*.

No- the difference is that he stole from large corporations instead of investors or other private citizens. The telecom companies were forced to foot the bill for the bogus calls- if the identity fraud victims had been stuck with the charges, he'd probably gotten away with it, or fined some. </cynical>

This is a conversation I had with an AT&T rep last week after they arbitrarily jacked up my phone bill.

True story.

- My phone bill went up by $3 last month without any notice. Is this an error? - No sir, is not an error. It's a rate adjustment. - You mean a rate increase.- No sir, a rate adjustment. - You mean a rate increase.- No sir, a rate adjustment.(!@#$%^ ... Sensing an infinite loop...)- And who authorized this rate adjustment? - I don't know sir. - And why wasn't I notified? - I don't know sir. - Is there anything you know that you are able to tell me?- No sir. - May I speak with your supervisor please. - She said she's busy now. She will call you as soon as possible.

(she didn't)

No wonder it took them 12 years to figure out this ID theft scam.They just don't give a damn.

Wait, did this guy really just go through all this trouble to stick it to AT&T?

**Standing Ovation**

Too bad he got caught.. and too bad all the victims had to deal with sorting out the fraudulent charges.

AT&T does benefit - after a while.One month I noticed some spurious charges on my phone bill. Prisoners go through the phone book and sign up every number for expensive extra services. AT&T will bill any account any amount without blinking an eye. The catch is that you only have 90 days to contest a bill. After that you have to pay.

So who doesn't notice huge charges ($25/month, up to $100/month) on their phone bill? Answer: A *lot* of people. Some go for several years without noticing.This scam is worth millions a year, to prisoners, scammers, and AT&T.

You can get your line set for no-long-distance and no-non-ATT-billiing. They actually make a stink about it and may even charge you ("we have to reset the switch").

This last bit more than anything convinces me they are completely "in on the deal".

Of course all this is fading as land lines disappear, but still a problem. Watch your bills - every $%^ month.

The solution for this kind of crime is to NOT pay the 900-number owners for fraudulent calls. If there's no money in it, they won't bother with the crime...

For that matter, why do we even have 900 numbers any more? That whole system has always been such an open target for abuse.

Call originator pays call terminator is embedded into international telecom treaties to the extent telcos have no choice but to pay these bills, regardless of this kind of fraud. Unfortunately the idea of rewriting telecom treaties to prevent built in proceeds for premium rate fraud isn't made any easier by certain undiplomatic and parochial attitudes that Internet international address block delegation and DNS root zone management should continue to come under the laws of the State of California. You probably won't get to responsible global governance of telecommunications anytime soon unless and until you decide that's what you want. (edit minor typo).

... I do wonder what made the service members more susceptible to the identity theft, however.

Other points made herein in response to this are good -- but one other reason is the culture of the military. I've been exposed to that culture somewhat, and it's surprising how much more readily military personnel will give up their social security number. It sometimes seems like they fully expect that everyone they do business with will need it in order to positively identify you... but that isn't really true.

Hint -- to military and non-military alike: If someone asks you for your social security number, no matter who it is or why they're asking, always ask them if there is some other form of identification that will suffice. In most cases, they only ask for it out of convenience, and not because they actually need it.

(Edit: Unless you've verified that they're from the government, of course. Your ranking officer, for example, would probably be offended if you tried this on them )

I'm curious, are there any commentators out there who are active military? Do the services still use/ ask for your SSN for everything? I ask, because when I was active duty 20 years ago, our SSN was used for everything. Hell, it was stamped on our dog tags along with full name, blood type and religious affiliation. (thankfully, no D.O.B.) I can also tell you that they were lost frequently by service members.

I'm curious, are there any commentators out there who are active military? Do the services still use/ ask for your SSN for everything? I ask, because when I was active duty 20 years ago, our SSN was used for everything. Hell, it was stamped on our dog tags along with full name, blood type and religious affiliation. (thankfully, no D.O.B.) I can also tell you that they were lost frequently by service members.

Thanks

Not just dog tags. I just realized after a recent trip that the duffel bag they "gave" me in boot camp still has my last name, SSN, and class number stenciled on it. Probably not the best thing to have strapped to the back of a motorcycle during Bike Week.

Nope, not active duty any more (and I'm curious about this topic, too).

AT$T charged me for a product I never ordered, wanted or needed!!! And, now they refuse to return the funds that they stole from me!!!I think they do this because all the executives starting with Randall L. Stephenson get paid so much money. They have to figure out ways to legitimately steal as much of their salary as possible. These people are no different than the crazies who horde cats or trash, except these people horde money.

... AT$T charged me for a product I never ordered, wanted or needed!!! And, now they refuse to return the funds that they stole from me!!! ...

Off topic: Simply put, this is a good example of why some bills should not be automated. Bill collectors are not your friends. Many banks these days have some method for enabling you to make bill payments from their website, instead of just blithely handing over your credit card to the bill collector... and if your bank doesn't offer online bill pay, then there is always the old standby of writing an actual check. I always back-track to one of these payment methods for any company (or even class of service, such as cellular provider) that has screwed me over like that in the past.